2. Red Eyes
1098 Words
For a brief moment, while the stranger was running with her in his arms, she glimpsed his side profile and his eyes..., those eyes were not ordinary eyes, then she fell unconscious again from blood loss. She couldn't feel the world around her or the pouring rain.
After some time, she regained consciousness briefly in the hospital, bandages wrapped around her upper body. The bullet seemed to have hit her around the shoulder area, missing vital organs. The stranger's unique red eyes were staring down at her with worry, and she seemed to know who it was, but her vision was still a bit blurry. She drifted off to sleep after a few more failed attempts.
The next time she woke up, the full weight of all that happened came down on her. The memories flashed unendingly in her mind.
"Let's break up Iroha"
"What is wrong with the way I look? It's cold tonight and I wear hoodies because I like them!"
"Let her go!"
A gun shot
"Are.. you the... reason for this?"
"No Hun. You did that all by yourself."
A Thunder strike
...
She let the tears fall unendingly. She couldn't move much because of the excruciating pain. The pain she felt inside was worse than that on her shoulder; she let herself really cry. James was her world, they only had each other ever since they ran away from their excuse of an orphanage. They took care of each other, stayed together, did everything together and all of a sudden he wanted to bury their history with three words?
The truth is, she had known when James began drifting away, and began sending mixed signals. She tried finding out the issue so she could correct it and they carry on with their relationship but nothing was coming up, other than that James did not want to be with her anymore.
She tried giving him time to sort through things on his own but things seemed to get worse. She knew it was coming, she had seen the signs but she chose to ignore them because she truly loved him. Even after he had said those mean words to her at target practice, she didn't take it to heart and was not going to give up on him.
It was not until he shot at her! Did he think her such a monster that she would have killed Sumi? She had a bit of knowledge in body anatomy and wanted to knock her unconscious but James actually shot her!
It was that shot that made her finally let go. She let it all out, the memories, the hurt, she wept, shouting at some point till she exhausted everything in her, so much so she couldn't cry anymore. After she cried herself dry, she made a silent vow to herself to change, take better care of herself, be more confident and display all the skills she had previously hidden out of fear. She knew it would not be easy but the first step to change was resolving to be different, and she was determined to be different. If not for anything, the gunshot wound sure told her she could not decide otherwise or something worse might befall her. With that thought, she drifted off to sleep. What she didn't know was the stranger who carried her to the hospital was sitting behind the closed door as she cried her heart out.
...
Summer ended.
Iroha stood in a full-view mirror admiring her reflection. She confirmed her choices once more in her head, picked her key, locked her door and made her way to school.
Heads turned in the hallway as passersby had to blink twice to confirm who they were looking at. Some even had to ask if she was a fresher in college.
She wore a high waist fitted black trouser, paired with a white lace singlet and hoodie! However, this time, she wore one hand of the hoodie as an off-shoulder, zipping the hoodie to just below her curves. Her heeled boots gave off an impressive aura and her eyes were a beautiful green contrast to her black hair. She wasn't wearing glasses nor contacts. For some unknown reason, her vision was so clear, she had to second guess that she had a bad eye problem before...
She walked into her first class for final year, feeling excited that her days in college were numbered. This was a class most majors took so it was an exceptionally large hall. As people filed in she sat around the fifth row, near the window and classes began.
During class, her mind began to wander. She laid her head on her desk, looking around the class from her point of view till her vision unknowingly stopped at a person. The lecturers voice was a background blur and her own vision was not focused, just frozen in time, thinking about nothing and staring at nothing.
Suddenly, a pair of red eyes turned and smiled at her. Her vision came back into focus. She had been staring at someone in her daze! And from the looks of it, he seemed familiar....
With that thought, the world under her feet flipped upside down. Time warped and the once sitting-in-class Iroha was now sitting in a wooden cave.
She shook her head trying to clear what was before her eyes but no matter how many times she shook her head, she was still in the cave!
"What is happening? Are these side effects from being shot?"
"If every person who gets shot get to come to my sanctuary unannounced, I'll make all the guns in the world disappear over night!" An old man said as he adjusted the wood his fireplace.
With a voice like a whispering breeze, he addressed her, sensing the unique aura of her Hanyō lineage.
"Does this even make sense? It happens in the movies a lot but this is reality. Or... Did I unintentionally enter a script?"
"Yes child, you entered a script and are now in what we call, a 'Parallel Alternate Universe'. Yōkoso!*" The Old man replied
"But... I can see my lecturer and I can feel my body in class and somehow, I can feel this place as well. Did I somehow get so lost in my daze that I'm imagining myself in two places?"
"Hmm, that's strange. Usually a Hanyō who comes to this world has no control over what their physical body in the alternate universe does, till they undergo training."
"Can you hear or sense anything from that realm?"
- Writer
